iPad Multitasking With iOS 9

A new feature for iPad users with iOS 9 is the ability to view two apps at once on the screen. You can use the Slide Over feature to bring an app up on the right side of the screen while pausing the main app. You can use the Split View feature to have two apps take up half of the screen each and interact with both. You can use the Picture In Picture feature to keep video on the screen while switching to other apps. These new features only work on the latest iPad models.

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. On today's episode let's take a look at how the new multitasking features in iOS 9 will work on the iPad.

There are three ways that you can multitask with iOS 9 on the iPad.

The first way is called Slideover. This is if you were to drag your finger off the right side of the screen onto the screen about a third of the way and it brings an app up on the right side of the screen. Notice the main part of the screen, which is running Safari here, is grayed out and it's inactive. If I were to tap on it Notes simply goes away. But I can interact with Notes. I can tap in there and type something, add something, whatever I want to do.

I can change which app by dragging down the handle there, you can see at the top, and now I get a list of all the apps that will fit in this space. Most of the Apple apps will but most third party apps won't. Most third party apps are developed to fill the whole screen like say a game or something like that. They are not going to appear here. But the Apple apps, for the most part, will. So it could be very useful to bring up Mail, or Messages, something like that and have it on the right side of the screen just temporarily while you're not dismissing the app on the main part of the screen.

Then if I want to get rid of it I can use the handle there to drag over to the right or I can just tap on the main part of the screen and I'm back to what I was doing.

Now, the second way is called SplitView. You start off the same way bringing up the slideover there. But once you've got the slideover you actually grab the handle there and you continued to bring it over until you are about halfway in the middle. You will see the apps just give you the icons. You release in the middle of the screen. Now you've got one app running on one side of the screen and one app running on the other side of the screen. Notice neither is grayed out. You can actually interact with both. So I can tap in Notes and interact with Notes. I can tap on a link in Safari there and interact with Safari. So I'm actually working with two apps at the same time.

Like before I can tap and grab the handle here, only on the right side of the screen, and change which app is there. So I only get the apps that will be compatible with this mode. A lot of third party apps, most of them in fact, won't be but these main Apple apps will be. So I can bring up something that I want. Then also to dismiss this I can grab the handle here and I can go to either side. I can bring Notes here to the front or I can go back to Safari. I can, if I drop it right there, I'll actually go back to slideover mode.

Now the third way to multitask is something specific to videos. It is called Picture-in-Picture. If you are viewing a video in an app that displays video in a standard way, like say Safari, you will get these special buttons you will see at the bottom right corner of the video. I've got an AirPlay button there but there is also a button right next to it that is the Picture-in-Picture button.

I'm going to tap that. This will only appear if the video is displayed in a normal way like here in MacMost for the iPad it is just displaying plain HTML5 video. So now I've got this Picture-in-Picture video. You can see it says this video is playing in Picture-in-Picture. I've got this video here and I can actually tap and drag it to one of the corners of the screen.

The cool thing is I can actually leave this app, I'm going to hit the Home button, go back to the Home screen there, and the video remains. I can drag it around. I can pinch it to shrink it or grow. I can even go off to the right or left side of the screen and it becomes this tab here. I can hit the play button and it will continue playing. I can use the X button to dismiss it or I can use the first button there to actually return it to its place in the app where it started.

Now you can only take advantage of these multitasking features if you have a pretty recent iPad. So both slideover and the Picture-in-Picture feature will work on the iPad Air, the iPad Air 2, and any newer models. You also can do it on the iPad Mini 2 and iPad Mini 3 and anything newer than that. If you want to do the split view then you need to have an iPad Air 2 or newer. None of the iPad Mini models currently support it although future ones might.